02/03/2011

My first column/spread/regular feature is out today. and I couldn't be more excited. It's my first time being published (byline and all) and I think it came out beautifully, what do you think? This will be a regular feature where I'll showcase the leading design trends, news and events every month.

So what's in this issue?

I wrote about KamKam and their amazingly adorable Dressed Up Furniture collection, Marcel Wanders' sexy light Sky Garden that I first saw in an event at Moss with Sam (more details on that in my next NY Diaries post), Pantone picking Honeysuckle as the color of 2011, online shelter and lifestyle magazines like Lonny, Rue, Matchbook and High Gloss (have you checked it out? I love how colorful it is!). In the bottom you can see a list of iPhone and iPad apps for the design savvy, including Color Snap, iHandy tool, Kelly Hoppen and the intriguing Wallpaper and Hermes collaboration, which just won't work on my iPad...

Oh, almost forgot! My item on One Kings Lane made it to the "it list" pages.

If you happen to be in the area and read Hebrew, I recommend you pick Go Style Magazine. Not just because I'm in it, but because they have done a magnificent job turning it from a fashion and gossip publication (which I adored for the witty writing) to a wonderful sophisticated lifestyle magazine. I'm really proud of them!

01/31/2011

A dreary weekend, along with some inspiration from LiveLikeYou (check out Jill's guest post) made me crave a colorful and bright beginning for this week. Leafing through an old Domino issue (I'm a walking cliche, I know) I found a picture of Olatz Schnabel's bed, which was all the things I craved. Isn't it amazing? Olatz is married to renowned artist Julian Schnabel, and owns an eponymous luxury bedding company ("eponymous" is such a magazine-y word, isn't it?). As you can see, her bedroom, which was recently published in House Beautiful, is the over-the-top dreamland of any gilt-loving design nerd as yours truly. I hereby present you with your monday color injection:

01/28/2011

Hello, friends. One blog that always cheers me up with it's colorful interior shots and original, out of the box ideas, is Jill Sorensen's LiveLikeYou. Jill, of Marmalade Interiors, is a talented designer and a past model. Her Outfit with a Past story had the same effect on me as her blues-defying interiors, so important on my birthday! (see what I'm doing here?;p) xo, Chedva

Hi Belly button readers! I’m Jill and I write the blog LiveLikeYou. I’m so thrilled to have been asked by Chedva to participate in her clever series “an outfit with a past”. As soon as she asked me, I knew immediately the outfit I would write about. My old US customs jacket!

I just dusted the jacket off to take a picture of it for this article! It’s been hanging in the basement for years! I’m really good at giving away, or throwing away, clothing that I no longer wear. But somehow I’ve never been able to throw this old jacket out. It reminds me of a very special time in my life - my first year living in New York City!! I had just started modeling with Elite Models, after spending a year as a Swedish au pair in San Francisco. I was eighteen, spoke broken English, my family was on the other side of the Atlantic, and life was this big, exciting, insanely fun adventure. For some reason I decided I would wear only men’s clothing. Men’s suits, jackets, ties-the whole thing! So one day I bought this worn 1950’s, oversized, man’s US customs jacket in a vintage store in Soho. I obsessively wore this very large jacket on my tall, gangly frame every day, and with a captain’s hat of all things. I know…eccentric! And I probably thought I looked really cool…

The funny thing is it wasn’t some fashion statement, it was just something that spoke to me. I could simply not go outside without my US customs jacket and my captain’s hat!! I lived in a “model’s apartment”, a place where the agency put up some of their girls. It was in a big fancy high rise on 2nd Avenue and 54th street. I come from a small town in Sweden so living on then 20-something floor was the most exotic thing to me. I shared the apartment with (my partner in crime) Jenny, and then unknown Cindy Crawford and Stephanie Seymore. They were always dressed in Azzedine Alaia or something fashionable, and probably had the doormen swooning when they arrived home. But I stuck to my US Customs jacket! Every day when I arrived back from work, all the doormen would start laughing, and yell out “AYAYA CAPTAIN!!” when I came through the revolving doors.” I of course found this very funny, and always played along.

I wonder sometimes who this jacket belonged to? Some guys like this? Did they know I overstayed my visa?? I called Jenny to see if she had any pictures of me in the jacket, that I could use in this article, since all my photos from that time period got lost at an old (bad) ex-boyfriend’s house. She laughed hysterically at the mention of The US Customs jacket and captains hat!! It made a mark on all of us!! She also reminded me on how we would dump water down on people on the street from our balcony, but that’s a whole other story…

The US Custom jacket came with me when I got married and moved to Virginia, and it came with me when I got divorced, and it’s still hanging in my basement, and it will probably hang in one of my closets forever. Thank You Chedva for inviting me to write this article! I knew there was a reason for keeping it all these years…

01/26/2011

My brother's wedding was last week, and it was fabulous. His gorgeous bride (now wife) made it even happier and prettier, with her amazing smile and personality... And I... I'll confess I did shed a tear (or a few hundreds). After all, my younger brother, whom I used to tell I'll turn one day into a frog, has reached his "prince" day.

Tacky sweetness overload aside, we're hosting a dinner party in honor of the newlyweds tomorrow, and as always- I get everything done at the very last minute.

Here are the dishes I just washed (by hand, all 90 of them)

And here's a glimpse into the theme

Can you tell I was inspired by chinoiserie, Eddie Ross and My Marrakesh's Maryam? Come back tomorrow to see more!

---

UPDATE:

The party was last night and it was a huge success! Really, it was beyond fabulous. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures (yeah, I'm beating myself up) but I'm told one of the guests did- so all hopes for bragging are not lost:)

01/17/2011

Dear friends, I hope you'll excuse my silence while I finish my dress for my brother's wedding (which is in two mere days- I better hurry!). Watch this space for new posts, including a new interview series, called Designer Coffee- can you guess what it will be?

01/14/2011

Friends, I'm so happy to relaunch the "outfit with a past" series today. I have some great guests lined up, starting with Liz Arnold of Homebodies. Unlike many bloggers who aspire to become writers for shelter magazines (yep, that's me), Liz already wrote about interiors when she decided to start her blog to showcase where "real" people live, and I just love how she does it. -Chedva

"You look like a bumblebee." "You look like a French girl." "You look like a Black and Tan." "Is that new Marc Jacobs? Are those moth holes intentional?"

I bought this vintage wool dress for a few dollars at a Goodwill when I was 16, and whenever I wear it, which is often, people comment on it. It's not always a compliment, but I don't care. (And hey, isn't that kind of an attitude the basis of style, anyway? Knowing beyond doubt what suits you?) I love it, it's comfortable, and--most importantly--it has pockets. Pockets!

So I've been wearing this dress for more than 15 years, and when I first bought it, it was much longer, but it fell to an unflattering length. My crafty mother offered to hem it, and she hacked it off just below the pockets, trusting her instincts rather than measuring. Well, I was a 5'6" teenager, and she was a 4'10" conservative mom, and she didn't realize the length to which she'd shortened it, suitable for her petite frame, was rather provocative on mine. She cried out in horror when I tried on my new mini-mini-mini-dress. Legs! Well, I've been wearing it with jeans ever since, or sometimes with thick tights, though it's just easier to wear it with pants because it barely covers my ass.

Every few years some aspect of the dress comes back into style: wide stripes, or the colors, or distressed fabrics. The fabric is, shall we say, distressed. It has a few moth holes here and there, but a few people have told me it looks intentional, like something Marc Jacobs would do. I don't know about that. When I was around 21, I had my first sip of a Black and Tan, the blend of stout and ale, because a guy I was sitting with at the bar ordered one in my honor.

Right now, in the dead of winter, I like wearing it over a wool top and black stretch jeans from Uniqlo, my $40 outfit. In the spring, I wear it over a t-shirt. If mom's not around, I might just maybe wear it with black tights and kitten-heel flats--regardless of what Marc Jacobs shows on the runway.

01/12/2011

Ugh, aren't you fed up with magazines featuring kids' rooms with no evidence that a live kid lives in them, except for a token Uglydoll or Teddy Bear propped on the bed? Oh, you are? So you can see why finding this room, designed by Hillary Thomas for Marlien Rentmeester of Lucky, made me smile.

Thomas kept the surface smooth and comfy, and reserved the glamor touches for higher up- a very practical yet pretty way to go when decorating for kids. I keep seeing grasscloth in kids' rooms everywhere (Celerie Kemble has them too, as shown in the Lonny issue before last). I have no experience with grasscloth- though I think it's gorgeous and adds just the right amount of texture to a room - so I'm wondering if that's a stylistic decision or is it really that practical? If you happen to know the answer to that, please share.

The cute table and chairs set (my kid has a similar one from Ikea) supplies a good place for painting and drawing without messing up the white floor (which seems to be easily wipeable, but maybe I'm mistaken), and the banister is a great place for propping toys without creating a too cluttered feeling (and tripping on them at night- ouch!).

I think what really makes this room is that the designer sticked to two main tones (blue and white) and kept the playfulness for the beautiful art, and the playful Canovas fabric, which reflects the colorfulness of the toys.

What did you think of this room? Would you put such high-end fabric in a kid's room? And were you happy to see a less sterilised version of a kid's room in a magazine?

01/11/2011

Oh friends, I had such a full, lovely day today. It started in a press event at a very exciting showroom (more on that in a few weeks), continued at my beloved sewing/pattern-making class, where I'm fixing my dress for my brother's wedding (so emotional) and ended, after a try-out at the hairdresser, with a delicious pumpkin soup, courtesy of my huz.

All day, I was waiting to get back home and post my contribution for A Hasty Life's blog crawl. Isn't that a grand idea? Now, don't get me wrong: if you think my bag is messy NOW, well, it's usually so much messier! Here are my "essentials":

At my once-in-a-blue-moon mani-pedi, my manicurist turned me on to OPI's Avoplex, and since then I can't leave home without it. I used to always have a book in my bag, but my back protested loud and clear, and I now always have an Audible book on my Nokia (hence the headphones). Magazines, however, are a habit I can't seem to kick (and don't really want to...). Aside from InStyle, you can spy Go Style, the Israeli magazine for which I started writing, in the background. I usually don't carry a hat, but it's been rainy here for the last past days, and I have an unexplainable bad luck with umbrellas (they always break!). A faux-python diary and two sharpies satisfy my doodling urge plus the need to stay organized (very, very difficult for messy me), MAC's brow pencil in "stud" keeps me nice 'n pretty, and the green crayola marker is for afternoons out with my kiddo.

I got my Kisim bag, which I coveted for months, for my birthday two years ago, and we never parted for long since then. I do have other (lovely bags) but this one is just so comfy and it gets prettier with age...

And the lil' brass elephant? My vintage shop owner friend saved it for my collection (thanks, Avi!) and I can't make my mind where to prop the little guy. So meanwhile, I enjoy him in my bag:)

Thank you so much, Ashley, for asking me to participate. Please don't forget to visit Yellow Songbird, who posted her beautiful bright bag yesterday, and check out The Best is Yet to Come for her post tomorrow.

01/10/2011

I decided to break down my NYC mega-post into a few, shorter posts. That way it won't be too long and heavy to read in one sitting, and the bonus is it will remind me of my lovely vacation for long. So, as usual, let's begin from the end.

On Wednesday (Dec 15th) I headed to SoHo to checkout The New Traditionalists showroom. I was very curious to see what all the buzz what about, and let me tell you- it was even better than I expected. After admiring the Mad Men worthy sign and entrance and the overwhelming loveliness of the team, David showed me around the place, while I happily took crappy photos;)

The finishing on each piece is amazing. I admired them from afar, but stepping closer and realizing how much thought and craftsmanship went into each and every piece made me admire them even more. Felt, Leather, special painting techniques- these furniture look... nurtured, grown by a loving hand. The fact that the furniture is built locally, just proves that.

As a parent who sometimes (who am I kidding? All the time) gets frustrated about the blandness in children's furniture, the sophisticated lines of TNT's kids' line, ducduc, made me squeal inside.

furniture drawings- amazing

Finally, it was time to leave so I could get to my next meeting on time, allowing some time for me to get lost (my sense of direction is virtually non-existent, but somehow losing your way on vacation is so much less frustrating).

Karen was even nicer in person, if that's even possible, and after being twitter friends for months we clicked immediately, chatting about design, fashion and life in general... I guess you'll understand a bit more about Karen if I tell you that I miss her already, and we've just met once! (Why can't I have a weekly coffee with my US friends, just for an hour, without getting flights involved??).

01/08/2011

This week I got the mock-up of my first column for Israeli fashion-turned-lifestyle magazine Go Style, byline and all. My inner Rory Gilmore did a hop and a squeal, and I gave my Eryn Brynie trench (there is lace applied on the sleeve openings!) a celebratory first outing.